| Bowl Cleanup |
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| When you hear that a cave has been vandalized, what do you do? Our group works at cleaning them back up. Here's Michael D's version or our day. |
| June 23, 2008 Chilly Bowl Vandals! A report by Michael Davidson For years we have had the privilege of using the caver's camp on Jim Terry's Chilly Bowl Cave property as a place for weary cavers to rest when coming to accept the challenge and possibility for discovery that await (or lurk) in the Chilly Bowl. One of the conveniences of that camp was a ready supply of firewood. Many a wooden pallet was use as kindling there, but no more. Some wonderful individual(s) with too much time on their hands got at least one four wheeler and had a pallet round-up. They probably lassoed, roped and hog tied nearly eight of our poor kindling pallets and herded them down the trail from camp to the cave, a hundred yards or so. There they proceeded to have a pallet 'cliff jump' into the 40' entrance drop! The initial discovery, made by Rodney Tennyson and others, found that the very first pallet had wedged in above the second drop preventing any of the others from going on to the bottom. Recent rains had soaked the wood, making it twice (or more) as heavy as normal. The resulting jumble of wedged and locked together pallets prevented RT from even getting off rope before having to sort things out! Once a landing area had been cleared, they stacked the pallets to await more help on a later date. On May 24, Jim Terry and friends find the stacked pallets ready for hauling and try for a direct haul out of the pit. Even with a caver guiding the rope from below it is impossible to get the 80-100 lb. pallet accross the lip. After multiple heroic attempts it became obvious a better system was needed. Having no knowledge of these events, I took another load of pallets out to be used at the camp. I found it interesting that ALL the pallets had been used up. 'They must have had a hell of a fire!' was all I could think of at the time. So I unloaded 8-10 new pallets by the fire wood pile 'just in time' as all the others must have been burnt up. I thought no more about it. Checking the email machine back at home I see RT sent me a note. It's about the pallets in the pit. Shit! I hope they don't come back for another round-up! That weekend, the 31st, a joint CRAG/MOLES team went to work to remove the pallets. Chaz, Alex, and Evan Angle, Chuck Maize, and myself showed up early to get things set up. I brought a short ladder to rig a tyrolean up nice and high in the trees, almost centered over the pit. We used a pulley trolley I made from two hardware store pulleys as the carriage on the tyrolean. Chaz added a cammed pulley for the haul line to lock it off after each pull and a redirect to center up the tyrolean, making life much easier. Chuck volunteered to put down the camera and drop the pit to tie the pallets to the haul line, but Chaz was already dressed out. Jim Terry arrived just in time to see the first pallet hauled up and help haul all the rest. The system worked well and we were all relieved that no pallets made it down the second drop. Rodney and Jeanna Tennyson came out in time to help haul pallets to the truck. They were also there just in time to see Alex (above), Chaz's oldest boy get on rope, rappel the first drop, and climb back out. All for the very first time! Once the pit was derigged Chuck and I drove up to camp and got the newest batch of pallets loaded back on the truck and hauled them off too. I just hope that cord of cut and stacked firewood doesn't end up in the pit! So be sure to bring your own kindling wood for any fire up at the Chilly Bowl camp and watch out for pallet herding four wheelers! |